On March 8, ...... 2008 (today), again we celebrate International Women's Day. The U.N.'s kids webpage, Cyber School Bus, offers useful information, including an item entitled "Peace and Politics: Who's (Not) in Power." More IWD links here.
... 1896, social worker and politician Charlotte Whitton (left), described in the online Canadian Youth Encyclopedia as 1 of her "century's most colourful and controversial women," was born in Renfrew, Ontario, Canada. Following "a brilliant academic career" during World War I, Whitton served from 1920-41 as director "and driving force behind" a child welfare organization now known as the Canadian Council on Social Development. In that role she "crusaded relentlessly for professional standards in the care of juvenile immigrants and neglected and dependent children." Mayor of Ottawa in the 1950s and 1960s -- the 1st woman to hold that office -- eventually Whitton, "[a]n arch social conservative," found herself "increasingly on the margins" of social work and women's movements. She died in 1975.
